“Is that a fact?” Dave asked facetiously, then in a venomous voice to the hitman, “We don’t want your kind here. This is our territory.”
Dimitri translated to the hitman, who suddenly veered forward and grabbed the legs of the drug dealer pointing a gun at him. They wrestled for the weapon. Dave and the other dealer joined in the fight. The Professor was momentarily distracted by the struggle, which gave Dimitri an avenue for escape. He dove for the driver’s seat, floored the accelerator, and spun the car around. He drove at breakneck pace — swerving and sliding in the snow. The drug dealers shot several times at the vehicle, but only one hit the car. It fractured the back windshield.
Madison moaned from the back. “Take me to my friend.”
Chapter Seventeen
It was getting dark. While Katherine paced the floor in front of the parlor picture window, Salina was upstairs camped out in the playroom. She’d finally exhausted herself and the cats, and the last time Katherine checked, Salina was sleeping on the larger cozy bed with Lilac and Abby snuggled against her. Scout and Abra were doing their evening reconnaissance mission and gradually got bored. They trotted into the parlor and jumped up on the windowsill to watch the snow fall.
Moving over to the cats, she petted their backs. “When is this snow ever going to stop?”
“Raw,” Abra cried in a sweet voice. She nuzzled her head against Katherine’s arm.
A few minutes before, Jake had texted that Stevie and he would be home soon, depending on road conditions. The interstate was open, but with restricted lanes. Stevie had picked him up without any difficulty. Once in the city, they made a quick detour to the hospital. Wayne and Leslie were the proud parents of a baby girl. He said that Stevie wasn’t much of a talker, but he really appreciated the “rescue.” Katherine could hear Stevie laughing in the background.
Looking out the window, Scout began to growl; Abra did the same. They stood up on their hind legs and dangled their front paws, doing their meerkat pose. Scout began wildly sniffing the air.
“What’s wrong?” Katherine asked.
Scout cried a mournful “waugh.” It sounded like a warning.
Staring out the window, Katherine saw a figure slide and stumble on the sidewalk. It fell down and then slowly got back up.
“Why on earth is someone taking a walk in this weather?” she asked out loud. “Cats, I’ve got to go outside and see if this person needs help.”
Scout leaped down from the sill and threw herself against Katherine.
“Scout, what’s the matter with you? I have to do this. I’ll only be gone a minute.”
“Na-waugh,” Scout pleaded.
“Take Abra and go upstairs.”
“Rawww,” Abra cried in a plaintive wail.
Katherine gently pushed Scout aside. She ran to the front door and opened it. Madison fell in and collapsed on the floor. Blood was flowing from underneath her fur coat.
“Madison? Oh, no. Madison.”
“Shot,” she said with great effort. “Shut . . . ”
Katherine closed the door and locked it. She grabbed her cell and punched in 911. “This is Katherine Cokenberger. Send an ambulance to my house. My friend has been shot.”
Ending the call, she stooped down and spoke softly. “Who did this to you?”
Madison struggled to breathe, and whispered something.
“What did you say?”
“Run. Get out of the house.”
“I can’t leave you. The ambulance is coming.”
“Give them the bag.”
“What bag? Madison, did you leave drugs in my house? Is that what those men are after?” Katherine asked with grave concern. She instantly feared for the cats. What if they found it? She shuddered. What if one of them ate something from it?
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . ” Madison didn’t speak anymore. She was dead.
Scout and Abra jogged into the small vestibule and began their death dance.
“Scout. Abra. Stop. Cadabra!”
The Siamese stopped and swiftly turned their heads toward the living room, with ears swiveled forward and erect. They both emitted a low, threatening growl. Abra hissed, Scout snarled.
“Stop it! Go upstairs, right now,” Katherine commanded.
All three were startled by the sound of breaking window glass in the living room. The mansion’s single-paned windows offered little protection against a determined criminal on the outside, trying to break in. The cats ignored the command and did exactly the opposite. They ran at breakneck speed into the living room.
Katherine removed the Glock from the back of her jeans. Her keen urban sense told her the two men who shot Vinny and Madison had come back, and were getting inside. She wasn’t a trained law enforcement officer, and because she was a novice gun owner, she didn’t want to face two gunmen who had automatic pistols. Katherine’s theory about the number of intruders was wrong. Only one man was breaking in, the other was facing Sam Sanders’s wrath in his back office at the Dew Drop Inn.
Gripping the gun with both hands, she backed toward the stairs, and said to the cats, “Treat! Treat!”
Abra ran out of the living room and nearly knocked her down, racing up the stairs.
“Scout,” she cried.
Salina stood at the top of the stairs, holding a frightened Abby.
Katherine knew she had to get Salina and the cats to the attic. Their only chance of survival was to hide in the hidden staircase until the police got there. Oh, dear God, please let the police get here first and not Jake and Stevie, she prayed. Calming herself, she had to think of a way to get the cats to go into the attic. Dashing up the stairs, she gently took Salina by the arm. “Come with me. We’ve got to hide,” she whispered. She led Salina to the attic door. Quickly unlocking the lock, she pushed her inside. “Go up and wait for me. I’m going to try and get the cats.”
“Please don’t go,” Salina said, her voice quivering.
“Shhh! Please, be quiet as a mouse.”
“Chirp,” Abby agreed.
Stevie’s daughter reluctantly climbed the attic stairs, and turned the corner to the first landing. Still holding on to Abby, she kissed the ruddy girl on the head. “I’ll protect you,” she said sweetly.
Katherine ran to the playroom and prayed the cats were still there and not investigating downstairs. To her relief, she found the cats sitting on their haunches at full attention. Lilac’s fur was raised on her neck; Iris tail was brushed out.
Not wasting valuable time, Katherine hurried to the armoire where she stored the cat treats, yanked the bag off the shelf and opened it. The cats suddenly focused on the treat bag and not on the intruder sounds coming from the first floor.
“Treat! Treat!” Katherine called in a soft voice. She backed out of the playroom, and enticed the cats to follow her like she was the Pied Piper of Hamelin, but with one variation on the medieval theme: cats instead of rats. The cats trotted out of the playroom, led by Abra, with Lilac a close second. When the two Siamese noticed the door open to the no-cat-zone, the forbidden attic, they lunged for it. The kittens were slow in getting the memo. Dewey stopped, began sharping his claws on the carpet, and then looked up. Before he could belt out a loud “Mao,” Katherine inserted a treat in his mouth. Iris, sensing the danger below, launched into her mother hen mode. Taking the rear flank, she nudged Dewey, and pushed Crowie with her paw. She drove the kittens like they were cattle, crisscrossing behind them and nipping at their backs until they were safe up the attic steps.
Knowing the door had noisy hinges, Katherine slowly closed the door but to no avail; it creaked loudly. Standing on the bottom step, she froze when she realized she couldn’t lock the dead bolt from the inside. Frustrated and terrified, at the same time, she wanted to sit down on a step and cry. Why do these terrible things keep happening to me? Scout’s downstairs with murderers and I can’t do anything about it, but I’ve got to save the others.
Salina said in a frightened voice, “Ma’am,
can we go now?”
Springing into action, Katherine snatched a flashlight off its hook, and directed the light in front of her. Salina stood wide-eyed on the landing, and was visibly shaking.
“It’s going to be okay, Salina. Trust me.”
Crowie began to meow his soft cry. Katherine picked him up and kissed him on top of his head. “It’s okay, my darling.”
Katherine hugged Crowie and placed him on her shoulder. Grasping the flashlight, she joined Salina on the landing. “I have a hiding place to show you. Get behind me and I’ll show you where it is.”
Katherine moved over to the beadboard panel; swung the metal plate aside, and pushed the key in the lock. She gave the key a hard twist, and the door opened. The cats rushed in the room, and began sniffing the torn up floorboard next to the secret trap door. Salina filed in behind the cats. Katherine inserted the key in the other side of the lock, pulled the door closed with the key, then locked it.
“Salina, hold my flashlight. I need both hands. Crowie, I’m going to put you down.” She removed the kitten from her neck and set him down. Crowie ran to Iris, who began to wash his ears furiously.
“Mao,” Dewey protested, wanting out.
“Shhh! Salina put Abby down and grab Dewey. You’ve got to keep him quiet.”
A barrage of bullets rang through the second story of the house. Katherine gasped, “They’re getting close.”
Salina refused to let Abby go. She buried her face in Abby’s fur. “How do they know we’re here?” she cried.
“I don’t know,” Katherine whispered. She got down on her hands and knees, found the trap door latch, and pulled it up. She stepped down into the space and kicked open the secret wall panel. Returning, she said, “Salina, you come down first. Hand me, Abby.”
“No, I’m not letting her go.”
“Okay, hold her. Scooch to the side of the opening, let your legs dangle, and I’ll pull you in.”
Katherine helped her down, then crawled to the other end to make more room for the two of them. “There’s a stairway landing through there,” she pointed. “Take Abby and wait for me there.”
“But it’s dark in there.”
“Here, take my flashlight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“The cats? What about the cats? Gimme the treats,” Salina improvised.
Katherine took the bag out of her pocket and handed it to Salina. Salina crawled through the opening to the landing and began shaking the bag.
The cats, thinking it was a game, hopped down and joined Salina on the landing. Lilac darted through the opening while Iris herded Dewey and Crowie in. Lilac me-yowled loudly. “Salina, keep them quiet,” Katherine warned. She fished her cell phone out of her pocket and used the flashlight feature.
The “treat” trick didn’t fool Abra. The former Hocus Pocus performer hesitated at the opening. “Come on, sweet girl,” Katherine coaxed. She reached up to snatch her, but Abra escaped her grasp.
“Abra, no,” she whispered. “Come here.” Climbing back up to floor to catch the defiant cat, Katherine heard the sorrowful cry of Scout. So did Abra.
“I’ve got to save her.”
Scout’s sister cried a mournful “raw” and threw herself against the beadboard panel.
“Stop it! You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Abra bashed into it again. Katherine grabbed her with one hand and dropped her down into the hole. She quickly placed the trap door on top, and moved to unlock the beadboard panel.
Abra pulled herself up through the opening in the damaged floorboard next to the trap door. The Siamese waited for Katherine to open the door, then escaped. She ran toward the attic stairs.
Katherine called with panic in her voice. “Abra, no! Come back.”
Chasing after Abra, she ran past the antique grandfather clock and snagged her sweater on the handle to the long, cracked glass door of the clock case. Stopping to unsnag her sweater, she looked up in horror as the clock rocked precariously on its cracked legs. Katherine reached up to steady it, but stopped when she heard someone below jiggling the door handle to the attic door. It jiggled once, then again. Slowly the door creaked open.
Katherine set her cell phone on the floor with its flashlight feature still on. She assumed her shooter’s crouch. She held her Glock in both hands and aimed toward the door. It was pitch black in the attic except for the dim light of the cell phone. The advice of her gun instructor played in her head: “Only attempt to take an active shooter down as the last resort.”
Poised to shoot, she placed her finger near the trigger. Waiting for the intruder to come up the stairs and turn the corner, she waited . . . and waited. Wondering what was taking so long, she started to get up when Scout slinked around the corner. “Waugh,” the missing Siamese cried.
“Thank, God. Scout! Abra! Follow me.” She picked up her phone and ran to the beadboard panel to the secret room. She mistakenly thought the cats were right behind her.
The seal-point sisters had other plans. They ran and squeezed onto the half wall, behind the grandfather clock.
“At-at-at-at,” Scout clucked. She stretched up tall on her hind legs in the confined space behind the clock. Abra joined her. Their movements pushed the clock until it wobbled from back to front and then fell face-forward off the half wall. With a deafening crash, the clock blocked the stairs to the attic.
A man screamed in pain. “Ya slomal nogu,” he yelled in Russian.
Katherine knew enough of the language to know the top-heavy antique had broken the intruder’s leg. Scout and Abra saved the day, or had they? Where’s his gun? she wondered. Where’s the other guy?
The man fired a round of shots through the space between the clock and the stairway wall. The bullets hit the uninsulated rafters of the attic.
“Go! Go! Go!” Katherine shouted to the cats.
The sound of police sirens filled the night air, and echoed throughout the empty attic. “Dammit, what took them so long?” she said, still worried. “Let Chief London deal with that nutcase Russian stuck on the stairs.”
Beaming the flashlight around the attic, she called nervously to the missing cats, “Where are you?” Then Scout cried from the secret room, “Ma-waugh,” which sounded like hurry up and get in here.
Katherine rushed in to find two impatient Siamese waiting for her, their tails whipping and thudding on the floorboards: Thumpity. Thump. Thump.
Katherine swung the door panel shut. “Okay, my treasures, let’s join Salina and the other cats in the safety zone.”
Securing the trap door over her head, Katherine crawled onto the landing where Salina was holding the cats. Lilac and Abby were on the teen’s lap. Dewey and Crowie were vying for her shoulder. Iris sat several steps down watching the kittens in her protective mode.
“Oh, Ma’am, I’m so happy you came back,” Salina said, with tears in her eyes.
Katherine sat down cross-legged next to her. Scout and Abra jumped on her lap and reached up to be petted. “Good girls,” she cooed, then said to Salina. “Before we do a group hug, let’s get one thing straight?”
“What’s that?” Salina asked, bewildered.
“My name is Katz, not Ma’am.”
Salina giggled, then became serious. “Katz, are we safe?”
“Yes, we are. One of the bad guys is pinned under a clock that weighs a ton.”
“How did that happen?”
“Scout and Abra pushed a grandfather clock on him.”
“You’re joking. Cats can’t do that.”
“I saw it with my own eyes, but we better not tell anyone. They’ll think we made it up.”
“I guess the bad guy ran out of time,” Salina said, and then put her hand over her mouth to smother a laugh.
“Ma-waugh,” Scout agreed, and then scampered down the partial stairs.
“Have fun, Scout. Abra, you go, too,” Katherine said with frustration. “Make sure you leap carefully at the place where the stairs are sawed off.”
> The cats stopped in their tracks, then padded back, eying Katherine curiously.
“I guess if I tell you two punks the opposite of what I want you to do, you’ll do as I ask. Sound about right?”
“Raw,” Abra cried, trotting over and head butting Katherine on the chin.
Chapter Eighteen
Stevie drove his Dodge Ram onto Lincoln Street. The entire block was filled with ambulances, an emergency fire truck, and several police cars. “This ain’t a good sign.”
Jake, riding opposite, opened his door and tried to climb out.
“Wait a minute, buddy. Let me stop first.” Stevie pulled over, and jammed on the brakes. Jake got out and plodded through knee-deep snow on the not-shoveled sidewalk, then moved to the street, which had been plowed. Chief London stood on the porch of the mansion talking to an EMT. When he saw Jake coming up the front sidewalk, he said, “We can’t find Katz or Stevie’s daughter.”
“What do you mean, you can’t find her?” Jake asked with terror in his eyes. “She’s not here?”
“No, we’ve checked everywhere, and can’t find them. We were hopin’ you’d heard from her.”
“No, not since an hour ago. Stevie and I were in the city. We just got to Erie. What happened?” It was then that Jake saw the broken front turret window to the house. His eyes widened with horror.
“Let me give ya the short version. Katz’s friend is dead, died in the front vestibule. Katz called it in. When we arrived on the scene, we found the broken window and Katz missing.”
“So the shooters returned?” Jake asked. On the way back from Merrillville, Stevie had caught him up to speed with the details of the drive-by shooting.
“Only one,” the chief said, pointing at the footprints in the snow on the porch leading to the window.
“Why’s the fire department here?”
“We needed their help to remove a big old grandfather clock from our perp.”
“What?”
“A Russian named Dimitri Godunov. He’s got a serious broken leg. We’ve already taken him to the hospital, and are lookin’ for someone to interpret. No one in Erie speaks Russian.”
The Cats that Stole a Million (The Cats that . . . Cozy Mystery Book 7) Page 11